Wrath of the Juice Box
by skwirelygurli
Summary: When Kurt comes home from New York to surprise Blaine, he gets roped into babysitting his matchmaker cousin. Klaine.


**Wrath of the Juice Box, a Glee one-shot**

**I do not own Glee. Reintroducing Karlie from Ctrl-A-Delete. Please remember to review and request!**

There's this wonderful thing about surprises. They can make people smile like idiots, or make them jump so high in the air that you're the one to laugh like an idiot.

When Blaine came to spend Christmas in New York, he was smiling like an idiot.

This time, it's going to be him smiling. Because here he is, on his doorstep in Ohio, on a sunny Saturday afternoon. He raps his knuckles against the door.

"Blaine, it's Kurtsie!" She beams up at him, her dark curls bouncing in excitement.

"Karlie, what did I say about answering the door?" He comes up behind her. There's an orange stripe across his cheek. His hands seem to be covered too, but it's hard to tell with the paint stained rag in his hands.

Kurt bends down to hug her. "You've grown."

"Two inches," she boasts, straightening up.

Blaine gently nudges her aside to take his turn. As they hug, he says, "I didn't know you were coming."

They pull back and Kurt rubs his thumb across his cheek. The paint is dried on.

"I wanted to surprise you." Karlie tries to wrap her hand around his. Her grasp only holds three fingers. Her six year old hands are too small, yet her grasp is not lacking as she brings him inside. "Looks like I'm the surprised one."

Once in the doorway, she nods to his shoes. Hers are off, her bare feet sinking into the carpet. Blaine's are also bare.

He takes his off, feeling like the odd man out for wearing socks.

She takes hold of his hand again. They go to the kitchen and she grabs him a juice box from the fridge. "It's cherry."

Kurt accepts it. Pulling the wrapper off the straw, he stabs the box. It squirts on his hand.

"Let me get you a napkin." Blaine notices that the napkin holder is empty (Kurt isn't the only one to suffer the wrath of the juice box) and he has to find more in the cupboard. While he does, Kurt tries to make it not obvious that he's staring at his butt.

He fails.

"Why did you break up with Blaine?" she asks, sipping on her own juice box. "Obviously you're still attracted to him."

How could he have forgotten her razor sharp instincts? This girl sees everything.

He takes a napkin from the new stack, ignoring the look of panic on his ex's face. It's not like he's going to tell her the real reason they broke up. She's too young to hear about these things.

Besides, it's not the reason that they haven't gotten back together.

"Remember when Marius moved away, and you guys didn't see each other anymore?" That boy had her heels over head in love, behaving like a true princess. Now he's gone, and they're back to square one.

"But we weren't in love like you guys are." Her juice box squelches as she sucks it dry.

His face matches the color of the cherry juice he's choking on.

"Long distance relationships are very hard," Blaine answers, thumping him on the back. "We're still best friends."

"Thanks." He coughs, tossing the rest of his juice box.

"We were in the middle of making sock puppets when you came. Maybe you could help us." He swings an arm around him, leading him to the living room.

Bullet dodged. Now they can focus on googly eyes and yarn hair and not how he wishes that Karlie wouldn't be so insightful for such a young girl.

She sits on the floor. There's a heap of old socks next to her. Maybe Blaine had decided to get rid of them. If he only wears them during gym class, there's no point to keeping them all. Not with graduation coming up next month.

"Which sock do you want?" Karlie holds one in each hand.

"The argyle one," he replies. She hands it over.

Tending to her own sock, she squirts tacky glue along the hairline. Blaine pokes his tongue out, drawing a thin mouth line in red paint.

"So what made you want to come to Ohio?" he asks.

"Honestly?" Kurt inspects the bag of googly eyes. He needs two of the same size. Otherwise his sock will look like it's in mid-wink, one eye more shut than the other. And there is no reason for the sock to be winking at him. "I missed you."

"Aren't you coming to graduation?" It'll be in three weeks. He's promised to return to watch his friends. Certainly he wasn't going back on his promise.

"I couldn't wait," he admits. Karlie awws, clasping her sock to her face.

Blaine sets his paintbrush down. "Well, I, for one, am glad that you're here. Somebody has to help me keep this girl in line."

She drops her sock, folding her arms across her chest.

Enter pouting mode.

"Where is your aunt anyway?"

"She took Klement for a check-up."

"And Karlie couldn't go with?"

"I didn't want to go," she says, forgetting that she's supposed to be angry. She picks up her sock again. "I'd rather spend the day with Blaine."

He slips the finished sock onto his hand. It's mouth is still wet, and he has to be careful not to smear the paint.

Flapping the socks mouth, he says, "That's because she wanted to watch cartoons. We spent the morning with Spongebob."

Kurt grimaces. One can only take that laugh for so long.

It's not like Blaine's melodic laugh. He could listen to that for hours.

"Yeah, and then he wouldn't let me watch tv anymore. Said it would rot my brain." Rot his patience is more like it.

Though he's been patiently waiting for Kurt, so she couldn't have rotted through all of it. He doubts four hours of a talking sponge would make him crack.

"So now you're making sock puppets?" He sticks the second eye on. It sags a little.

"We're going to put a puppet show on for mommy and Klement when they get back." She grins, and he sees that her front tooth has fallen out.

The things he misses when he goes to New York. Lost teeth, glee club scandals.

Blaine Anderson.

He slides the sock puppet onto his hand. "How's it look?"

"It's bald."

"Karlie," Blaine warns.

"Well it is." She throws a chunk of yarn in his direction.

It falls between his legs. Blaine is so close that when he spreads his legs to retrieve it his knee hits his side.

Scooping the yarn up, he draws his knee back in. "Sorry."

His knee should not be tingling. It should not be wishing to rejoin his side, where there will probably be a bruise in the morning. It should be bent up, next to his other knee, behaving.

It should be blocking his view of Karlie staring at him. He can read her look, and he does not like the things it's saying.

Okay, so maybe he does. He just doesn't like to admit it.

She presents her sock puppet to them. The hair looks windblown (not in a good way) and one eye is bigger than the other.

"I think Blaine and Kurt should be together," she has the sock say in a falsetto voice.

"I think you're right Pearl," she says in her normal voice.

Kurt glances at Blaine, raising an eyebrow. "She named her sock?"

Out of everything, that's what bothers him. Not that a sock told him they should be together, or that she agreed, or that she's having a conversation with a sock.

No, he picks the most normal thing.

Is it wrong that he agrees with a sock?

"As much as I would love a second chance with Kurt, it just isn't feasible when he's in New York and I'm in Ohio."

"So move in with him."

"Karlie, you can't just volunteer Kurt's apartment."

If Klement grows up to be anything like her, he's refusing to babysit. One of her is plenty.

Kurt slides his now hairy sock back on his hand. "I would love for you to move in after graduation."

"Please?" his sock pleads in a deep voice. She's not the only one to use a sock to get her way.

"Seriously?"

"Only if you agree to move in as my boyfriend." It's a bold statement, and his heart leaps to his throat. He had come with hopes of proving to himself that they're just friends. But with Karlie's not so delicate nudging, it has become apparent to him that there's more to it than that.

Way more.

He feels sock and yarn against his cheek. The other cheek feels skin. With his head between Blaine's hands, he kisses him.

His hands make their way around his neck.

Karlie giggles when they separate. "Um, Kurt?"

"Mmm?" he asks distractedly.

"You have puppet lips on your cheek."

His hand shoots up to his face. Running his finger down the wet red paint, he groans.

"I'll go get a wet wash cloth." Then he can clean Kurt's face, and, remembering the orange streak from earlier, his own.

He walks away, and Kurt catches sight of something on the back of his neck.

He covers his mouth (with the sockless hand) and stifles a giggle.

Karlie sees it too, and calls out to him. "Oh Blaine!"

"Yes?"

"Kurt's sock gave you a hickey!"

There on the back of his neck are two little red lip marks from where his sock had been resting.

It'll wash off.

And if not, it'll be a great story come Monday. The story of how Kurt and Blaine got back together.

This time they're staying that way.


End file.
